I have been thinking about the death of Wilson Gavin. I know many people are feeling upset and confused about what happened, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts to start a discussion about the way people engage in politics. A thread👇🏻
I don’t want this thread to be framed as a ‘left’ versus ‘right’ thing because that’s not helpful. Instead, I want to highlight a different divide which plays out in fierce cultural wars: tolerance versus intolerance.
I try to bring my children up to be tolerant. The world can be confusing for toddlers - they have a million questions and just want to understand ‘why’! I’ll give you an example of the sorts of conversations I have with miss four.
When we go to public bathrooms, she loves to show me which one is the ladies bathroom and which is the mens. ‘Look mummy, the lady wears a dress and the man wears pants’. Then she thinks about it for a second. ‘But mummy, I wear pants and I’m a girl’.
I explain that indeed girls can wear dresses or pants or whatever they like. I remind her she loves to wear shorts and could wear boys clothes if she chose (she prefers pink, rainbows, unicorns, my little ponies - her choice!).
‘But mummy, why can I wear boys clothes but boys don’t wear girls clothes?’ When she says this, I am reminded how literal children are. I explain that boys do indeed wear dresses, and when they do that they’re wearing dresses - not girls clothes - but their own clothes.
Thing is, she has no experience of boys wearing dresses. But she will have once she gets older and I am teaching her that people come in all shapes and sizes, with different taste in clothes and a range of other choices which are all absolutely fine.
We’ve had similar conversations about boys and girls having short or long hair - either is fine - and whether girls can cut down trees and fly planes. The other day she said ‘daddies run but mummies don’t’. I did a short sprint to prove her wrong (and pulled a muscle). I digress.
Every difficult conversation I have with her like this is aimed at opening up her mind to tolerance. She sees one version of the world in our household and in her childcare centre. She is being taught other people are different and that’s a wonderful thing.
Teaching tolerance, in my mind, is a crucial part of preparing my girls to be not only kind and compassionate people, but to be happy people. It’s very clear to me that intolerant people are not happy people. They are scared, often angry, lash out and don’t make friends easily.
At this point I want to say of course I have no idea how Wilson was brought up and I’m sure he was taught to be tolerant just like any other child, but he made decisions in his life to join with particular social groups and movements which are fed by intolerance.
Intolerance is a potent political weapon because it provides a persuasive narrative to its in-group: you are good, moral and just, and the people who are not ‘in’ are villains. In an intolerant culture, people are taught to reject ideas of everyone who doesn’t share their ideas.
Intolerance is the key thread of Trumpism. Watch how the MAGA supporters attack and ridicule ‘crying liberals’ like they’ve won a game where the prize is proving they are right and everyone who has different ideas are wrong and need to be attacked like they’re in a battle.
Intolerance is at the heart of the narratives of Pauline Hanson and many in the Liberal Party. It is a political strategy designed to bring out the worst in people and it very effectively does that. Intolerance also leads to ideological stubbornness.
This means not only do intolerant people practice sexism, racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia and any other way of attacking people who are ‘other’, but it also means they are intolerant to ideas that contradict theirs - such as scientific consensus about climate change
It’s been quite eye opening, however, how angry these types of people get when called out for their bad behaviour. They lash out, and then when you shine a light on them (like I have been doing to trolls spreading arson disinformation) they freak out like they’ve been attacked.
This would suggest that these intolerant people who are angry, scared and resentful of people who aren’t like them, aren’t actually proud of who they are when they behave in this way. They use intolerance as a weapon, but it’s actually backfiring on their own life happiness.
That’s why I think we need as a society to understand those who sow seeds of intolerance in various different powerful institutions and groups - Liberals, some religious groups, elements of the media - are not just hurting the victims of intolerance, but the intolerant as well.
If we know that tolerance leads to openness, diversity, opportunity and happiness, where intolerance leads to the opposite, why are we allowing cultural wars to constantly be used as a political weapon, with the result hurting people on both sides? It’s become the new norm. Why?
If Wilson Gavin had found his way into a university group that promoted tolerance - there are many of these groups! - rather than intolerance, his life may not have spiralled the way it did, to end tragically in suicide.
We should be teaching our children and promoting values of inclusiveness, diversity and tolerance as a key part of community cohesiveness as well as individual happiness and success. This is what a mature society would do.
When groups are organised around intolerance, when intolerance is weaponised to score political points, those leading these groups and movements should be called out for the damage they do to their own members as well as the victims of intolerance.
I hope this is a productive discussion, and that Wilson’s death can be a wake up call to start conversations that are long overdue in our community. Here is Lifeline’s number for anyone feeling distressed - 13 11 14. End.
